Media Corporation of Porowon

The Media Corporation of Porowon js the local television monopoly broadcaster of Porowon. It was formed in 2009 and officialized in 2011 when tbe government restructured the media operations.

The company is often mistaken for Mediacorp (legally known as Media Corporation of Lenapore between June 1999 and February 2001).

The broadcaster has gained numerous criticism over its monopoly in television and more recently, radio. The broadcaster's safety was easily cracked in a series of hacking incidents between 2018 and 2020 and since then, the Wangjia administration has reduced the number of operating radio and television services and imposed further crackdowns on topics deemed "unacceptable" by the current administration.

History[edit | edit source]

THK[edit | edit source]

Radio arrived to Porowon under the auspices of an external office of the THK in 1939, the government-run broadcaster of Orience. While interest in radio was low, it did manage to create a radio culture. Between its founding and 1942, it was known as PHK.

PHK[edit | edit source]

When Orience surrendered, the overseas stations of the THK reverted back to their former owners. In Porowon, however, this was not the case, as the government had to create a new state-run company from scratch using the THK equipment.

By the 1960s, PHK operated three "channels": Channel One in English, Channel Two in Japanese and Channel Three in Mandarin. Occasional programming in Porowonian and Bengali was shown in some time slots.

FM broadcasting began in 1968. Television then followed in late June 1974 as a black-and-white service; it did not convert to color until as late as 1985. By then the PHK - largely dependent on outdated material and technical equipment - operated three channels, Channel 4 in English, Porowonian and Bengali, Channel 7 in Japanese and Channel 9 in Mandarin. Porowonians installed color television sets in the first half of the 80s largely to try and pick up television signals from Television Great Scorria's Kotaro transmitter. Even by then, there was tight government control over the airwaves and even mentions of color television were heavily censored by the press (until the liberalization process of 1989). Porowon became the second-to-last country in the entire world to convert from black and white to color - Rissoma switched to full-color broadcasts between 1985 and 1987, using Oriencian aid, while Lenapore received Northulian aid. A fourth channel, Channel 11, launched in January 1985, shortly after the launch of regular color broadcasts. Bengali-language programming moved to the new service, after 8pm it became an arts channel.

PBC[edit | edit source]

The liberalization process of 1989 led to the corporatization of the PHK. The name had to change to PBC in the following year as one of the many requests of the new government because the name had a really bad impression on many younger Porowonians who were puzzled about the status of the country - the initials were in Japanese and the switch to English was one of the many plans to restructure the company.

The radio structure of the corporation was changed. Channels One, Two and Three were replaced by a new, five-station radio system:

Radio 1 was the English-speaking news, current affairs and classical music service;
Radio 2 was the Japanese entertainment service with occasional English-language music programming;
Radio 3 was the Japanese news and culture service;
Radio 4 was the Mandarin news and entertainment service;
Radio 5 was the Bengali and Porowonian service.

In 1991, PBC 7 produced the country's first serial, Success Road. It lasted for six episodes and proved that Porowon, despite being too small a country, was already capable of producing television series that would eventually become smash hits. PBC 9 followed soon after with two series. If the response was high, then the amount of episodes per series was to increase.

CDIP classes were launched on PBC 11 in 1992 and they were broadcast in the morning hours when the channel was off-air. Most television channels did not start until noon and usually ended at around midnight.

In 1995, the PBC radio structure changed again. Two new stations were launched and the numbered names were removed. These were:

NewsRadio, the former Radio 1;
Symphony, spun-off from the arts programs on Radio 1;
Porajio, the former Radio 2 and 3;
Poguangbo, the former Radio 4;
Capital, a new station spun-off from entertainment programs in English on Radio 2;
Boishakhi, the former Bengali slots on Radio 5;
Kiporo, the former Porowonian slots on Radio 5.

In 1995, PBC 7 and 9 broadcast the first Porowonian Star Awards. PBC 4, on the other hand, was now looking towards international shows. Breakfast television was introduced on PBC 7 in 1996, when the channel now started at 7am with a show carrying an English title (Seven at 7) yet the program was predominantly in Japanese.

Poguangbo was renamed Jade in 1997. In the same year, Good Morning Porowon replaced Seven at 7 and the starting time moved to 6am, allowing it to increase by one hour, Mandarin and English editions followed in the same year.

MCP collaborated in the 2000 Today event promoted by the Nashlandian Broadcasting Service. Channel 4 broadcast the event from Porowon, World 11 (see below) carried the world feed.

Porowon Television Eleven[edit | edit source]

The PBC spun PBC 11 off in 1995 to create a new sub-company, Porowon Television Eleven, in order to better manage its service for the minorities. The channel was simply rebranded Channel 11 on October 1, 1995. Part of the reason why the spin-off was executed was due to the arrival of cable television. The channel initially used the Channel 11 branding until October 1, 1996, when it was divided into two blocks: World 11 and Porowon 11. Porowon 11 broadcast programs for ethnic groups and became the home of Bengali and Porowonian programming, as well as occasional foreign content. World 11 broadcast highbrow programming. The structure of a shared channel failed and in 1997 it bought a UHF channel frequency, channel 32, to broadcast the split Porowon 11, with World 11 staying on its longtime channel 11 frequency. This move infuriated some people due to the fact that not a lot of people owned television sets or antennas that picked up UHF signals.

PTV 11 was restructured in January 2000. Porowon 11 became Akowara, broadcasting for five hours on weekdays and eight on weekends, and entirely in Porowonian. World 11 became Zone and was divided into three "zones": Kids Zone, Ekushey Zone and Arts Zone. The move of Bengali-language programming back to the channel 11 allocation was in order to give Akowara a chance to operate and to allow Porowon to join the newly-launched World Indigenous Television Broadcasters Network.

Ekushey Zone split from the Zone channel in 2008 to become a standalone Ekushey channel. Zone was then restructured by expanding its kids block to where Ekushey Zone was formerly broadcasting. Ekushey operated on a frequency that used to be operated by TVI (more info on its shutdown and flawed competition below).

TCP and RCP[edit | edit source]

The former PBC collapsed in 2005 - owing to the unprecedented success of the spin-off of channel 11 - and was divided into two companies, the Television Corporation of Porowon and the Radio Corporation of Porowon. In the same year, TCP kept a positive position towards competition - as TVI, scheduled to launch later on in the year, was greatly welcomed, but the decision was backfired when the High Court said that TVI should shut down and that the government would control all television. This move was considered to be an "antitrust law" in other countries.

The timing turned out to be pretty bad for the restructured company. On October 7, 2004, former president Zhi Lu Qi died and a week-long period of mourning had to disrupt regular media activities.

In December 2004, before TVI started broadcasting, TCP and the High Court banned the license to continue operating, despite TVI's insistence in continuing operations. TCP eventually became an increasingly isolated monopoly, despite the spin-off of PTV 11.

In 2005, TCP bought Porowon Northulic Pictures, a nascent film producer, in an attempt to diversify its businesses, and the former TV Week company was renamed TCP Publishing.

The cession of Radio Free Porowon in an odd arrangement led to the creation of the lifestyle station Viva 92.9. The station fell under the control of RCP in 2011 and shut down on December 31, 2018.

In 2010, Channel News Porowon launched.

MCP[edit | edit source]

A 2009 act led to the creation of the Media Corporation of Porowon. Initially it was a holding company, yet they had plans to unify all of their brands. In 2011, all of the brands controlled by MCP were collapsed into a new united brand:

Radio Corporation of Porowon: MCP Radio
Television Corporation of Porowon: MCP TV
Porowon Television Eleven: MCP TV11
TCP Publishing: MCP Publishing
TCP Pictures: MCP Pictures
Porowon Technologies: MCP Technologies

In recent years, MCP was one of the victims of increased censorship measures imposed by the government and the regulators. This is largely due to the then-new Park John and successive George Wangjia governments to be "moral" by law. One of the newer stations, Viva, shut down on December 31, 2016, due to what the Wangjia administration considered to be "immoral". The current MCP is viewed as a mouthpiece of the government, contrary to the statutory revisions of 1990 (PBC) and 2004 (TCP/RCP).

Zone was absorbed by Channel 4 in the end of April. In May, another hijack threatens to kill another channel Ekushey, leaving the corporation with five television channels. The move is to protect Muslim viewers from watching frequently-hijacked broadcasts.

A new administration took over MCP in March 2022 coinciding with Wangjia's defeat and is currently operating only Channel 4. Other channels will be restored "in due time", mostly driven due to factors such as the fall in the Porowonian population since 2019, because of massive immigration of non-natives and changes to Porowon's adminsitrative plan.

Channel 7 will resume operations in 2023 at earliest.